R. Kelly’s Killer Serial: Video, Music, Cliffhangers, Midgets

Eric Lane as Twan and R Kelly as Sylvester in "Trapped in the Closet". Credit
Jive/IFC

The story began simply enough: the love triangle of Sylvester, Kathy and Rufus. But after 12 chapters the triangle was more like a lopsided octagon, with a dozen characters and as many cliffhangers. The dramas hinged on unlikely plot devices: leg cramps, pie allergies, the surprising things one finds hiding in cupboards.

Now “Trapped in the Closet,” the tale of infidelity, violence and violent infidelity by R. Kelly, the R&B star, is getting, if possible, even more complex. Mr. Kelly has created 10 more episodes of his cult video series, which he and a cast lip-sync as he narrates the story to a lilting, and unchanging, beat, punctuated by the sound of water dripping. Since Monday, the IFC cable channel’s Web site, IFC.com, has been streaming one new chapter daily. On Tuesday, Jive, Mr. Kelly’s record label, plans to release a DVD collection of the latest episodes, and next month IFC will present all 22 chapters consecutively, like a film.

Given the plot twists — Episode 9: “Not only is there a man in this cabinet/But the man is a midget! (Midget! Midget! Midget!)” — fan anticipation is almost absurdly high. Private viewing parties, tribute performances and singalong screenings are scheduled for around the country, celebrating the first hip-hopera/alt-comedy/independent video crossover hit.

“It’s the intersection of brilliance and insanity,” said Evan Shapiro, the general manager of IFC. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The closest thing I can compare it to is John Waters. He creates a universe that is completely self-contained.” (Mr. Kelly, a Grammy-winning singer who is scheduled to go on trial on child pornography charges in Chicago on Sept. 17, declined an interview request.)

The first dozen episodes of “Trapped” were released in installments, starting in the summer of 2005. Five were included on an R. Kelly album, “TP.3 Reloaded”; the rest, along with accompanying videos and then a DVD, followed independent of any records.

By 2006 “Trapped” had spawned a cottage industry of responses, explications and parodies. Teenagers did remakes. A comedy blog, somethingawful.com, posted summaries of the byzantine storyline; they eventually ended up in a best music-writing anthology. Spoofs appeared on “Saturday Night Live” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live”; a “South Park” episode in which Tom Cruise was trapped in a closet generated its own controversy. Last spring there were two comedy shows devoted to it running in Los Angeles. Both played to sold-out houses, even when they were on the same night.

“ ‘Trapped in the Closet’ has that ‘oh my’ factor, so that you’re actually laughing at, laughing with, and actually shocked by it,” said Henri Mazza, a creative director at the Original Alamo Draft House, a movie theater in Austin, Tex., which is planning a midnight DVD screening, complete with subtitled sing-alongs and prop giveaways, like a condom printed with the words “oh my God, a rubber! (Rubber! Rubber! Rubber!)” — see Episode 4. “There’s no way you can’t enjoy it.”

Photo

R. Kelly as a preacher, another role he plays in his video serial, Trapped in the Closet, which has spawned its own cottage industry of spoofs and parodies.

Which is not to say you can understand it.

“You can’t tell if he is a genius or a guy who just saw the definition for cliffhanger in the dictionary yesterday and decided to run with it,” Mr. Mazza said of Mr. Kelly. “I think that’s one of the things that keeps you coming back. I’ve watched it 25 times at least, and I’m still going, ‘Wait, what?’ ”

The new chapters raise the ante: There’s a helicopter, a church choir and Mr. Kelly doing his Eddie Murphy multicharacter bit in an old-man costume, complete with prosthetics.

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“Most stories choose to make a right turn or a left turn,” said Aziz Ansari, the comedian and a star of “Human Giant,” the MTV sketch show. Mr. Kelly “chooses to get into a space ship and fly to another planet.”

With the comedian Eric Appel, Mr. Ansari developed a popular “Trapped in the Closet” commentary show at theaters in New York and Los Angeles last year; he plans to reprise it at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Manhattan on Aug. 25. Playing different characters, he and a panel of comedians like David Cross and Patton Oswalt dissect the episodes and take questions from the audience, though Mr. Ansari said it was harder than it looked to match Mr. Kelly’s humor. “We’re merely racing his genius,” he said.

Brently Heilbron, a comedian in Los Angeles, agreed. He spent a month learning the original “Trapped,” performing it there and in New York, accompanying himself on ukelele, and joined by a cast of eight (and a few puppets). He hopes to revisit the show for the new chapters — eventually. “You have to sort of sequester yourself and watch it and make it make you over,” he said. “It’s an epic experience for both audience and participant.”

Mr. Kelly has not announced an end to the series, though he has hinted that it may become a stage work. Will fans stick with it? “I’m nervous that it might jump the shark,” Mr. Mazza admitted. Then again, he added, “it started with the shark jump.”

For its part IFC hopes the serial’s viral popularity draws visitors to its site (which seems to be working: the number of unique visitors to the site increased 300 percent since the episodes started) and bolsters its image as a purveyor of original — if not to say oddball — content. Mr. Shapiro noted that, like millions of others, he first watched “Trapped in the Closet” hunched over a colleague’s computer screen.

“This is what a lot of independent content is going to look like, moving forward,” he said. “Not necessarily with midgets, but you know what I mean.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E1 of the New York edition with the headline: R. Kelly’s Killer Serial: Video, Music, Cliffhangers, Midgets. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe